Sharks goalie Martin Jones catches a shot from the Ducks’ Rickard Rakell during the third period of Game 3 of their first-round playoff series on Monday night in San Jose. The Ducks created more scoring chances in Game 3, but they too often got caught with too many players up ice and got burned by counterattacks in an 8-1 loss that has them facing elimination in Game 4 on Wednesday. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

SAN JOSE — Playoffs produce moments that are truly memorable. But they also cut both ways.

In his rookie season, Adam Henrique had one that he can carry with him for the rest of his NHL career and afterward. A series-clinching overtime goal that lifted his team to the Stanley Cup Final will stay with a player.

And there is the flip side. In his first postseason since his defining score with New Jersey, Henrique shuffled off the ice with the rest of his Ducks teammates to the visiting locker room at SAP Center and started processing an 8-1 slaughter administered by the San Jose Sharks in Game 3.

Asked if this was among the lowest of the playoff moments he’s had, Henrique promptly answered, “Yeah.” And then there was the instant follow-up to make a point.

This was not something he would dwell over.

“Today’s a new day to move forward,” Henrique said Tuesday. “It’s just as simple as that. You have to put it behind us and look forward to tomorrow and finding a way to get that first one under our belt.”

Game 3 was an abomination for anyone affiliated with the Ducks – at least with the product on the ice.

Four Sharks goals in the second period blew open what had been an evenly played contest. Three more power-play goals were poured on in a final 20 minutes that turned it into a complete runaway.

The final score served as the living, breathing example of the decisive difference that has separated the Sharks and Ducks in this Western Conference first-round series. And the Ducks are facing the prospect of being swept out unless they claim Game 4 Wednesday night at SAP Center.

It is shocking, given their pedigree as an annual contender in the Western Conference and the presumed belief that they had the capacity to put another lengthy run together because of the big, physical, grinding game that has been their tried-and-true formula.

“It was a night that you want to forget as soon as possible,” winger Andrew Cogliano said. “It was a night that was, I think, embarrassing for everyone involved in our organization. And for a game that you really want to push to win and lose 8-1, there’s no words to really describe it.

“Was it an 8-1 game? I don’t know. I thought we played probably one of our better games, if not our best game of the series in terms of creating chances and getting shots and making them work. But overall we lost. You lose in that fashion, embarrassing is definitely a word you can describe it.”

Teams often take practice days off in between playoff games or coaches will leave it to their players to use their option to skate or not. But the blowout had Ducks coach Randy Carlyle make Tuesday a full on-ice session, with only physically challenged Ryan Kesler not practicing, as he hasn’t been.

Carlyle brought the entire group over for a chat in the quiet, empty arena that was filled with a roaring, joyous sellout crowd hours before. Whether this was one of his final addresses as Ducks coach might hinge on how his team responds to the worst loss in its playoff history.

“What you do is you prepare your group as you normally would and then you talk to the individuals,” Carlyle said. “You bleed out some of the things that have happened and prepare them to make sure that they’re focused on one thing. What they can do. Their complement.

“I don’t think you can jam a bunch of different things in. It’s a situation where you can recognize, you meet it head on and you play to everybody’s mind and soul. We have to leave here tomorrow night knowing we put everything that we possibly could into winning this hockey game.”

There is a “laundry list” of things they can fix, Carlyle said. Rampant undisciplined play is the most obvious and the Ducks have paid dearly for that. Defensemen getting caught up ice during Game 3 were burned repeatedly by Sharks counterattacks and goalie John Gibson could not make the do-or-die saves.

“Of course we have to be a little bit smarter when we join but then we have to play as a five-man unit,” defenseman Hampus Lindholm said. “We’ve got to cover for each other too. You can’t just sit back either.

“Sometimes you have to go to try to win a game too. We can be a little smarter for sure.”

There is also a serious offensive outage. The Ducks have scored just three goals in the first three games, with just one – Jakob Silfverberg’s Game 2 score just 40 seconds in – coming in 5-on-5 play. Rickard Rakell got his first goal Monday, but other offensive weapons have been shut down completely.

Henrique, who is without a point in the three games, sees where forwards need to work harder to keep the puck in the offensive zone and get the Sharks out of position and make them more susceptible to taking a penalty. Activating defensemen can create odd-man advantages but …

“You can’t take risks at certain times,” Henrique said. “You got to make the right decision. Sometimes you have to put the puck in and live to fight another day. Offensively, I think we just have to get more bodies and more pucks. Find a way to get maybe a couple ugly ones to get us going.

“In order to do that, we just got to get on our forecheck. Grind it down in the offensive zone and just get pucks and bodies to the net. Just really simplify there.”

Carlyle has said having defensemen join the rush is part of every team’s strategy in today’s NHL. His problem in Game 3 was that they led the rush and stayed too far into the offensive zone instead of operating more as secondary late attackers.

“You join because you want to create something offensively,” Lindholm said. “It’s not like you join because you’re just going to join. You do it for a reason. You have to be smart and see when is a good time to do it.”

The Ducks must find a way to create some hope, which they readily stated was possible. Just four teams have erased 3-0 deficits to win a best-of-7 NHL playoff series. But they must show San Jose more of their best, show why they were able to total 101 points and gain a playoff berth for a sixth straight season.

“Have we played the smartest series? No,” Cogliano said. “Have we executed? No. Have we done a lot to win three games? Here and there we’ve probably played some good hockey, but ultimately, no. One thing’s for sure is we’re not going to quit.”

ICE CHIPS

The Ducks recalled goalie Reto Berra and brought up defenseman Jacob Larsson from the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, whose season is over. Carlyle said “both are options” for Game 4, though Berra is more likely up as an emergency third goalie with Gibson and Ryan Miller both healthy and practicing Tuesday.

Eric Stephens has been covering the Ducks and the NHL for news outlets since 2005 and for the Orange County Register since 2009. Now happily spreading the hockey gospel throughout the Southern California News Group. Has covered three Stanley Cup Finals and (sadly) one NHL lockout. Once took up an invitation to a fan's tailgate barbecue at the College World Series. Has all sorts of genres on his iPod and tries his best in whatever he does most of the time. Only the grits at Waffle House come close to his. Eternal goal: Be better.